Mitt Romney used slide after slide in a PowerPoint presentation Thursday to make the case that the health care reform law he signed in 2006 isn’t much like the one President Barack Obama signed last year.

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"A lot of pundits are saying I should stand up and say this whole thing is a mistake, admit it and walk away," Romney said in a speech at the University of Michigan. "A lot of folks conclude. There's only one problem: it wouldn't be honest. I did what I believed was right for the people of my state."

Like the federal law, the Massachusetts law contains an individual mandate that requires the purchase of insurance. The federal mandate has become a lightning rod for Republican criticism of Obama’s health care reform law — and the target of numerous lawsuits.

But Romney defended the Massachusetts mandate, saying its goal was "to insist on personal responsibility, to say to folks who could afford to buy insurance, either buy insurance yourself or pay your own way. Either have insurance, or we’ll charge you for the cost the state will have to cover you if you get seriously ill."

In one PowerPoint slide, Romney said Massachusetts’s goal had been to “Help people get and keep their insurance.” Obama’s goal, he said, was “a government takeover of health care.”

But in the run-up to Thursday’s speech, voices on the right and left reached a moment of rare agreement: “Romneycare” is, in fact, almost indistinguishable from “Obamacare.”

“As everyone knows, the health reform Mr. Romney passed in 2006 as Massachusetts governor was the prototype for President Obama's version and gave national health care a huge political boost,” The Wall Street Journal wrote in a scathing editorial.

The paper said Romney should apologize for the Massachusetts law — or just “knock off Joe Biden and get on the Obama ticket.”

“The similarities between what he championed in Massachusetts and what the president has championed are about 100 percent,” Center for American Progress’s Neera Tanden, who sits on the board of the pro-reform group Protect Your Care, said on MSNBC Thursday morning.

Romney vowed in his speech Thursday that, if elected president, he’d sign an executive order paving the way for “Obamacare waivers for all 50 states” and then work with Congress to repeal the health care overhaul. In its place, he said he’d push for new reforms: more control for states, including Medicaid block grants, tax deductions for people who buy their own insurance, medical malpractice reform, and the ability to sell insurance across state lines.

Those proposals have gotten some attention. Former Sen. Jim Talent, now a fellow at the Heritage Institute wrote in the National Review Online Thursday that Romney’s new plan “would create no new federal agencies, does not raise taxes and would aim to reduce federal spending.”

But even Cannon dismissed Romney’s platform as “Republican boilerplate,” recycling ideas well accepted in Republican circles for years now.

Readers' Comments (216)

Romney's a smart guy,and he'd make a good president - hell, anybody would be better than the dud we have now.

But this looks like a miscalculation to me. Obamacare will Hindenburg our economy if it isn't repealed, and Romneycare will hang over this guy's head through the entire election because he hasn't admitted that he screwed up.

He is doomed. The reactionaries will not bother to learn the fine points and distinctions Romney is trying make about his bill. They are already lathered up by two years of propaganda. And most of his opponents will kick the can along. I am surprised we dont see anti-socialist protest signage about Romney in front of where he is speaking. I guess his being a corporate raider keeps that one at bay.

If Obama is such a dud, why arent republicans racing to take him on? Answer: Because he's not the dud you wish that he were. But as to Romney, it really is becoming painful to watch. He would be better off just asking the GOP base for forgiveness.

"to insist on personal responsibility, to say to folks who could afford to buy insurance, either buy insurance yourself or pay your own way. Either have insurance, or we’ll charge you for the cost the state will have to cover you if you get seriously ill." --- Stop making sense. What distinguishes Romney's statement from Obama's? I am guessing the answer is no difference at all. The adolescents reactionaries do not want to be told what to do.

Romney has 2 major problems that may make it impossible for him to win the nomination of his party. These are Romneycare and the fact that he is a Mormon. Unfortunately, religion is, still, a stumbling block for any person running for the presidency. The South will never support a Mormon and, rarely, will support a Catholic. Just the facts.

As far as Romneycare, it is a fiscal disaster that will bankrupt MA if it is not, drastically, modified or repealed. No amount of talking or tap dancing will change this cold fact. Romney will not get the nomination. If, by some miracle, he did get it, he would guarantee an Obama victory; not that conservatives would vote for Obama but, that they would not vote for either major party’s nominee.

Romney is proud of his accomplishment in Mass and Obama is proud of his healthcare overhaul. If you are running AGAINST Obama, you better keep quiet about Healthcare reform. Funny thing is that they both did what was needed and are getting beaten up for that. Power of lobbyists and insurance industry knows no bounds in making GOP jump through their hoops. Teabaggers just needed a reason to oppose the president because the obvious reason (a president with a weird name and a different color) was not good for public consumption and image.

What critics want to ignore is the simple fact that the HCR Act gives states the ability to solve the problems their own way, as long as they meet the federal standard. Critics ignore how flexible, except for that standard (which protects people from being abused by insurers who charge a lot but provide very little), HCR is and why it will not be fully enacted until 2014. "Government takeover" is a ridiculous term. "Government firm encouragement to get states to get off their arses and, once and for all, solve the friggin' problem or have the federal government do it for them" is a far more adult way to put it.

Massachusetts is not the model for health care, Vermont is. Vermont's universal single payer system is a 21st century system. Massachusetts health care system is a 1950's system A single payer system like Vermont and Canada have would save the United States $390 billion a year in administrative costs, $410 billion a year in non administrative costs, making $800 Billion a year in total health care savings by changing to single payer.

What is bankrupting the United States is insurance run and insurance rationed health care. Insurance run insurance rationed health care is what is not sustainable and what has massive waste and bloated administration.

A single payer system has overhead of 3.5%, insurance run and insurance rationed health care has overhead of 41%. Single payer is the only way to control costs, so single payer would save $390 billion a year in overhead (administrative costs) and $410 billion a year in lower non administrative health costs, making a total saving for a single payer system of $800 bilion a year.

I really have a hard time seeing how Romney can win the GOP presidential nomination with his defense of state or federal mandates that Americans must buy expensive, health insurance plans designed by politically motivated politicians and bureaucrats. The financial incentives for politicians to load such plans with expensive, unneeded preventive and alternative care coverage mandates will make them unaffordable for millions. This will force the states and feds to subsidize health insurance for more than half of the population.

Already, ObamaCare is setup to subsidize some 70% of the population. Repeating the same mistakes that we see in RomneyCare and ObamaCare is a display of insanity.

There is no way Romney can run on a platform that calls for repealing ObamaCare. Mitt is a Big Government Republican who learned politics from Teddy Kennedy.

Finally, Romney tells us what he really believes, and what he believes won't sell. And finally, he offers his ideas for fixing the health insurance markets, but they're not really his ideas, and few will buy them as outlined in his USA Today op-ed and in his speech. The man knows health care, but he doesn't have a creative bone in his body.

I start laughing when I read about the speech Mitt just gave and the comments of the uniformed conservatives posted to this site. The individual mandate that Republican's now are against has always been a Republican idea and supported the Heritage Foundation. The bill passed by Congress is a clone of the Romney plan and puts in motion the same process used in Massachusetts for states to structure their own plans. Obamacare isn't a national take over of healthcare, it is an attempt to reform the out of control costly health care system before it bankrupts the entire nation. The danger to this nation is not the Obama health reform it is the current system that damages our economy each and every day by sapping more and more money from every individual and every business.